Robots Take Over Italy’s Vineyards as Wineries Struggle With Covid-19 Worker Shortages

Labor shortages => increases in wages and increases in wages => more substitution of labor by machines WSJ Oct. 2021). Do increases in the minimum wage have similar effects?

Amazon Go

Using AI, cameras, and sensors - Amazon is eliminating the human capital in stores and making checkout as smooth as swiping your phone and charging your account at the end. Imagine what Amazon can do when robots can fill orders and drones can deliver products to my doorstep. You could take a VR tour of a store and "buy" an item by blinking on it, the robot fills your cart, and the drone delivers the cart to your house. Your children's world will be different from mine.

Increases in the minimum wage are not going to slow the replacement of people with machines.

What happens when coronavirus makes a plant an unsafe place to work?

The coronavirus pandemic hit meat-packing plants hard. The owners of the plant have responded many ways (WSJ, July 2020).

1. The demand for PPE increased. What do you think happened to prices for PPE?
2. The supply of labor decreased; people don't want to work where the probability of getting sick is high. What happened to the price of labor?
3. Owners are substituting machines for people to pack meat. Would they substitute more and faster when the price of labor is low or when it is high?

Are the responses by owners what a benevolent social planner would order?